Calling Forth the Clouds

Calling forth the Clouds
November 5, 2009
an excerpt from the book I Am Sharing: Thoughts, Experiences and Learning About Love and Service, Andrew Skadberg, PhD.

In 1981, when I was just a few days clean from drugs and alcohol, I had a very profound experience. I had discovered that I might be an alcoholic and drug addict in the month of May.

I had been struggling with trying to escape from the world via drinking and drugs since I was thirteen years old.

In May of 1981 I had been arrested for the fourth time for alcohol related incidents. I had an incredible awakening on July 12, 1981 about how I had to get honest with myself if there was ever any hope for my recovery.

This experience I relate here has to do with my coming to believe that there was a power greater than myself – or a God. Prior to this time, as a young person trying to rectify the “issues” related to a loving God allowing all of the suffering in the world, I guess I had come to the dubious place of being an agnostic. I couldn’t satisfy myself with the dogma of Christianity as practiced in middle-America, nor had I spent any time investigating the great Truths contained in all religions, and those that are embedded in the Bible, that I have come to know that have been intermixed with manipulations of the church leaders throughout a 2000 year history.

However, on July 12, 1981, I had gotten on my knees for the first time that I can remember, and prayed “God Help Me!” I have been clean of drugs and alcohol since.

Two weeks clean, which was an impossible accomplishment previously, I found myself preparing to go to a conference for young people in recovery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was excited. But before I could leave I had to finish a contract with Pioneer Seed International, detassling about nine acres of corn. It is a very arduous work.

I was really anticipating my trip, which at that time to travel 250 miles was a really big deal. I was in the middle of the corn field and it was hot! As I remember over 100 degrees, no wind and the corn was over six feet tall so it was a real miserable situation. Although detassling corn is demanding physically, after one learns how it becomes autonomic. Thus, as one pulls the tassle out of 18,000 plants per ½ mile row, there is ample time for thought.

On this day the sun was beating down, in addition to stifling heat and humidity, and I felt as if I might pass out. However, I had to get this job done so I could get paid and make the trip with no worries.

I guess I must have been contemplating the existence of God as I tramped through the rows of corn. The recovery program that I was part of strongly suggested a person to accept the possibility that there existed a “power greater than themselves”. In the first twelve or so days from my first prayer, I guess I had not totally rectified this issue. This could be understood since I had been a skeptic for a number of years. So I decided to put God to the test.

It was so incredibly hot. Really, Iowa heat, in the middle of a cornfield is something that is incomprehensible if you haven’t experienced it. I needed relief or I would have to leave the field, to take a break and recover – maybe returning later in the day when it had cooled some.

It was a cloudless day. Over 90% humidity. So I looked up at the sky and said, “Ok, if there is a God, cover up the sun.” It was a simple request, and I really didn’t take it seriously. I went back to my work without noticing anything specifically, until about 10 minutes passed and the glaring sun stopped. I looked up, and from an absolutely cloudless sky, the sky was filled with clouds and cooled the temperature I would estimate about fifteen degrees.

I couldn’t believe it. I just kept on working, finished the job comfortably. Made my trip to Minnesota and decided that that was enough evidence that there was a God. I believe that experience carried me through with a simple faith in God, that helped me make it through some of the more challenging times of early recovery from drug and alcohol abuse.

Of course, over these many years, I have done vast contemplation and study of what God is. And today I use a number of terms to refer to this “Being”, including God (although this is likely the most misunderstood) the “One” or “Source” of “All That Is”. I also use “I Am”.

Today, as I write about this experience in the cornfield 28 years later, I have another understanding. That is that I was the one who caused the clouds. That is because I am One with God – we are not separate. And I have come to discover (and this is likely the tip of an infinite iceberg) that what I truly am is a multi-dimensional being (in our universe), expressed through Spirit as a direct descendent of the One – the Source of all life in our universe and an infinity of universes that extend through infinity of what we call time.

But this is a digression and likely Sharing for a future book. Nevertheless, I have discovered incredible new realities of consciousness, and my roles and responsibilities on the little place we call Earth, and our divine opportunities to extend our experiences throughout the vast reaches of the cosmos. I cannot relate here the full breadth and depth of the books, experiences and contemplations that have brought me to this place, although I have given a sample here in this book, specifically maintaining a careful consideration for what people “of the world” will be able to consider and believe. But the one book, whom I was the great benefactor of providing my services to help bring to the world “When Love Guides Your Thoughts” was one of the most profound contributors to my confidence in my experiences, and trusting that the Divine, my life, and All That Is, is in perfect order. I have been made in the image and likeness of God. I have the powers to co-create, to affect the weather, to heal, and to bring into manifestation many ideas, things, concepts, and creations that appear to arise from nothing. But in reality, it is Mother-Father God extending its creative expression through me via my experiences, learning and sharing. And the more that I believe in these incredible possibilities, and trust my heart, and align the power of my mind to my heart’s Divine guidance, the more that these possibilities expand. And how I get access to this is captured in two statements of one of many great and wonderful teachers (paraphrased) “the kingdom of god is within you”, and “seek ye first the kingdom of God”.